


An Idea Fully Formed

by girl_wonder



Category: Morning Glories
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-24
Updated: 2015-12-24
Packaged: 2018-05-09 00:33:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,481
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5518883
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/girl_wonder/pseuds/girl_wonder
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Casey rubbed at the point right between her eyebrows that always seemed to get tense and said, “Ok, so this is like <i>What Dreams May Come</i>?”  An Inception not!AU for MG.</p>
            </blockquote>





	An Idea Fully Formed

**Author's Note:**

  * For [brella](https://archiveofourown.org/users/brella/gifts).



Casey rubbed at the point right between her eyebrows that always seemed to get tense and said, “Ok, so this is like _What Dreams May Come_?”

Hunter waved his hand back and forth like a boat about to capsize and finally just shook his head. “No. It’s like _Inception_. We’re incepting him.”

“What?” she asked. She glanced between Jade who was nodding enthusiastically and Zoe who looked like she would rather be anywhere else.

“So not a Nolan fan,” Hunter said. “I mean, I get it, what with all his uncomfortable dead-women in refrigerator themes, but did you see the trailers?”

Casey shrugged again, and Jun sighed. “It is about going into dreams and planting ideas in people’s minds.”

“Like _What Dreams May Come_ ,” Casey nodded.

“No, that was about going into someone’s dead mind, not their dreams,” Hunter said. “And also kind of about the afterlife.”

“Look, the one good thing about not being here was, you know, not being here,” Zoe said. “So while I missed none of your company, I would appreciate it if someone could get to the point.”

“We need to go into Ike’s mind,” Hunter said.

“Why?” Casey asked, but her voice was overruled by Jun’s immediate, “No” and Zoe’s “Ewww. Gr _oss_.”

“They’re using him to get to Abraham,” Jade said. “And also because he does something. Something soon. Something bad.”

Her eyes got bright and she reached up to rub at them, smearing black eyeliner across her lids. Silence crept in, quieting everything. Jade reached out and pointed at Zoe, “You know. You know what happens.”

Zoe shook her head. “No, it doesn’t work like that. But... yeah. I know something happens.”

“Is it that bad?” Casey asked. Zoe pursed her lips and looked away.

“Irina wanted to kill him because of it,” Jun said. “Guillaume said that was her goal. During the Wood Run.”

Shrugging, Casey looked between the four of them again. “I mean, Irina’s a psycho, but she’s locked up by the faculty. I don’t think we have to worry about it.”

“Look,” Hunter nudged a crate with his shoe. “I think we do.”

“I just don’t see-“ Casey started, but the room suddenly shifted, going crooked and in the corner a little boy played with toys, but the toys were snakes and he turned to them, his eyes bright, bleeding red.

“He’s getting in all of our dreams and I think unless we break the connection...” Hunter trailed off.

Jade was leaning over the little boy and picked up the snake from between his chubby hands. “It’s going to get worse.”

Casey woke up.

* * *

“What did _you_ see when your eyes opened?” Zoe muttered, shaking the vial.

“What’d you say?” Jade asked, leaning back, sharply.

“Nothing,” Zoe held the vial out to Casey. “I took a look at it, said I was doing my science experiment on neurochemical reactions to LSD.”

“What is it?” Casey asked. 

“Pretty similar to LSD,” Zoe said, drily. “Some differences, and a few chemicals that I don’t recognize.”

“What does it do?” Casey asked. Zoe shrugged and Jade turned around, hiding her hands in her elbows. “Will it do what we need?” 

“They give it to us to open our eyes,” Jade said. “To release us from our minds.”

“So, no,” Casey said. Casey was the sharp point between them all, cutting through their layers of self-protection and fear to the bleeding, broken truth underneath.

“It probably could,” Zoe said. “If we took it in a small enough amount. Like micro-dosing LSD.”

“Micro-dosing?” Casey asked.

Sighing, Zoe said, “So, when you take a full dose of LSD, you trip for hours, days. And you can’t really control what you see. It gets all Yellow Submarine, Magic Schoolbus up in there. But if you take a small enough dose, you can get just enough of the effects while still remaining in control.”

“And you think that we could get the benefits, the opening of our eyes, but not be overwhelmed by it,” Casey said. She shook the vial and the liquid sloshed.

“No vomiting?” Jade asked the wall. She curled over her knees, her head disappearing into shadow, an ouroboros feeding on its own tail. 

Zoe looked between them, Casey reluctant and Jade terrified. “I can’t promise anything. I’m good at chemistry, but this isn’t something we’ve done before.”

Jade began rocking back and forth. “You haven’t done it before.”

“I haven’t.” Zoe took the vial back. “It could work. I’ve never done the linked dreaming thing, neither has Jun. Have you, Casey?”

The question was sharper than she intended it, grinding sand into old wounds and leaving Casey looking at her uncomfortably.

“I don’t think so,” Casey muttered, rubbing at her elbows. For every moment that Casey grabbed power like it was her right to reign, Zoe saw the other moments that Casey handled power uncertainly, a crown and staff that were too large for her and too heavy for her purpose.

Casey saw power as a means to an end, the way that got her closer to her own goal. It made Zoe uncomfortable. She’d known power her whole life and she saw just enough of the machine at work to not be certain whether Casey was bucking the powers that be or being saddled by them.

* * *

“First we need to make him comfortable,” Hunter said. He had drawn a large circle on the board and written _MORNING GLORY CLASSES_ along the curved line. “Then we need to go deeper and find out what he actually sees about his father.”

The second circle was smaller and read _BASEMENT_. 

“How will we disconnect him from our dreams? That’s how they’ll get us, is through Ike,” Casey said, incisively.

“We have to go deeper than that,” Hunter said. He drew a smaller circled and wrote _???_ in cramped handwriting.

“We could take him back to New York? Where he feels safe,” Casey suggested. “Or make him think they let him out?” 

“No,” Jade said. She grinned and it was something brittle and mean. It wasn’t something that Casey recognized, but Jun leaned in like he was finally listening.

“We make him think that Abraham came back for him,” Jade said. 

“That’s...” Hunter trailed off, looking to Casey.

“Cruel,” Zoe said, but she was nodding. “That would work. Even if he didn’t open up, it would stress him out enough that he’d have to show us where the connections are.”

“How do we do that?” Casey asked. “Zoe could you get Abraham to come here? Could he step in on the dream with us?”

“He doesn’t need to.” The voice was Jun, but the man in front of them was sandy haired and older, eyes creased at the corners and a smile that was somehow mysterious and comforting.

“How’d you _do_ that?” Hunter asked. He walked forward, and poked at Abraham’s cheek.

Jun shrugged. He melted back into himself. “I just want to be.”

“So we have a plan,” Casey said. “Let’s do it. Jade, you have to show us how it works.”

“What?” Jade took two steps back and shook her head. 

“You’ve done this more than any of us,” Casey said. She looked uncomfortable. “And you know him better than any of us. You’ll do great.”

“Sure,” Jade muttered. “Tomorrow, then.”

* * *

“Imagine the classroom,” Jade said. She was talking low, her voice just barely audible and Zoe grimaced. 

“Who?” Zoe asked. “All of us? Do we need to?”

“You do it,” Jade said. “Just imagine a classroom.”

There was a shimmer for a moment and suddenly the world was hot, and the sand dry and the sun weighed a thousand pounds, making each breath hurt that much more. 

“A classroom here! A classroom at Morning Glory!” Jade shouted, her voice a dry scratch.

They were suddenly in class, desks just as uncomfortable, Daramount frozen, her chalk about to touch the blackboard. Outside, the wind blew through the trees, swaying branches heavy with apples.

“Woah,” Hunter said. He tapped on the window, his nail making a hollow sound. “Ok, how did-“

“Can you do the basement?” Jade asked.

“I’ve never been there,” Zoe pointed out. “So, no.”

“I’ve been there,” Hunter said, hesitantly.

“When?” Casey asked.

“To see Fortunato,” Hunter said. The silence was uncomfortable. Hunter's mind scrambled, searching for something he could say that would shatter the ice in his stomach. "I did go visit him... twice... just to see a familiar face. We had eggs."

There was a beat and Jun asked, "Eggs? Can we eat in a dream?" 

" _Alias_ , people! I'm making sure everyone has box sets when we all get out of here. Hot spies? Mysterious machines? Double agents? Prophecies? No one else sees the connection?" Hunter sighed. 

“Take us to the cell,” Jade said. She seemed more confident with each word, and the universe flexed around her. When Casey looked at her out of the corner of her eye, Jade looked older, taller.

Hunter opened the door to the classroom and they were suddenly on a staircase that wound around itself, going down, down, down, down. The light disappeared and Casey’s nails bit into her palm, dripping blood onto the stair. Jun glanced over to her and she looked away.

Hunter pushed open the door and they were in a small cell, barely fitting. 

“This is good,” Jade said. She looked around, then back to Casey. “Could you do something about them?”

Her tone was flat, but her body had shrunk and she looked younger now, barely older than twelve. Her finger was pointed at the two dead bodies hanging from the ceiling.

“Oh my god, Casey,” Hunter said, and the floor shifted under them. “Casey are these your...”

“They kill our parents,” Casey said, voice flat, echoing her ‘I’m running for president’ speech.

“Focus, Casey,” Jade said. She put her small hands in between Casey’s. “Think about what we’re doing.”

“I can’t, I can’t,” Casey said. She wiped at her eyes with her fingertips, then reached out to grab at her mother’s ankle.

The corpse jerked to life and looked down at her, “ _You killed us_.”

The scream woke the guards.

* * *

“We can’t do it,” Hunter said. He looked sick and his eyes cut towards where Casey sat on her own, hair covering her face. Ike talked at her, and she barely moved, not that he noticed.

“We have to,” Jade said. 

Zoe’s mouth was a white line that sharpened her eyes. Hunter shied away from it. “Not like I love agreeing with My Chemical Romance over here, but she’s right. He’s a fungus that we need to bleach out of our minds.”

“Maybe,” Hunter started.

“No, not maybe,” Zoe hissed. She pointed to their left where a dog was barking unceasingly, spittle flying as he tried to lunge at them. “Hunter, we are awake, and we can see that. We need to cut him out of our heads.”

“I’ll talk to Casey,” Jade said. She looked at Hunter and half smiled. “You get everything ready?”

“Tonight,” Zoe said.

“Yeah,” Hunter agreed.

* * *

Ike walked into class behind Casey, and her eyes cut left and right, but Jade had placed a moving blackboard between their seats and Casey's parents’ bodies. All she could see was the chains and the slow spread of blood across the floor.

“Ah, thank you for joining us,” Miss Daramount. “You two will stay after class.”

“Where is everyone?” Ike asked, looking around. Zoe stared out the window, a bead of sweat sliding down her neck.

“The whole class is here,” Daramount said. “This is a study session.”

“I know what I’d love to study,” Ike said, leering at Zoe.

“Murderer,” a voice creaked. 

Ike looked around, his head jerking. “Did you hear that?”

“Hear what?” Casey asked, her fist clenched on her pen.

“As I was saying,” Daramount said. “We’re here to study connections.”

The chalk screamed across the chalkboard as she drew a line between two points, then another and another, until the board was a cat’s cradle mess of lines and connected points.

“Connections?” Ike said, but Daramount was already gesturing to Jun where he stood in the corner.

“Jun and Hisao, for example. So far away and yet still connected,” she grinned and her teeth grew pointed, a hunter playing with her prey.

“You,” she said to Ike. “And Abraham.”

“What?” Ike stood, pushing over the chair. “No! I don’t have any connection to that man who thinks that a birthday card and some gift from his secretary makes us related.”

“You shared a cell,” Daramount hissed. “You can’t ever lose that connection.”

“No!” Ike threw open the door, and was halfway down the steps before he realized. They followed him, single file. Casey two steps behind him. 

“You killed us, and we loved you,” the walls hissed.

Ike tripped and tumbled down until he slammed his shoulder against the door, hissing. “No,” he said.

“Open the door,” Jade said. She was older again, her hair long and her smile sadder. “You shared a cell with him.”

Ike was trembling, his whole body frozen. Jade picked up his hand and raised it to the door handle. He lifted the circular latch and opened it. The room was empty and Ike dropped to his knees. 

When he his head dropped to his chest, they all saw the lines, like nooses wrapped around his neck and tracing back to their chests. A golden line, the thickest, traced out of the room and disappeared. Casey reached up and touched the line connected to her chest. Her fingers burned, and she winced back.

“Ike,” a voice said. It was an unmemorable voice, something that disappeared from memory as soon as it was heard. “Ike, come on. We don’t have much time.”

The man was familiar and if Casey had had a moment, if she could have focused, she was sure she would know him. Instead he grabbed Ike’s hand and pulled him. The moment they touched, Ike screamed.

“ _NO_ ,” he roared. “NO. I SAY NO.”

The lines, the hangman’s ropes that connected him to them snapped, and the world around them crumbled. Ike’s eyes glowed, almost red. “You don’t ever touch me.”

Casey woke up.

* * *

“It worked?” Jun asked. He looked at the other four. “I cannot tell.”

“It worked,” Jade said. “I don’t think we made it better.”

“What better?” Hunter asked. He chewed on his lip.

“She means we didn’t make a better future,” Casey said.

“Listen, that’s for tomorrow,” Zoe said, raising her milk carton. “Today let’s just be glad we’re done with the snakes and the dog and the daddy issues, ok? Cheers for that?”

Casey snorted a laugh, but raised her own milk and waited until Hunter and Jade followed suit. 

“Awkward, man, leaving us hanging,” Hunter muttered.

“Fine,” Jun raised his water bottle. “Cheers to not being crazy any more.”

_End_


End file.
